Alaska Supreme Court takes up Sitka assault where a woman owes $104,000 to the doctor who pleaded guilty to assaulting her

A Sitka woman whose doctor pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her lost her civil suit against him and the city that owned the hospital where he worked. She now owes them $104,307.57. The Alaska Supreme Court hears her appeal Nov. 20.

The jury that decided her case in November 2024 was never told about the guilty plea. On Sept. 3, 2024, Sitka Superior Court denied her motion to introduce the plea and convictions, and denied a second motion to admit testimony about other sexual assaults under the evidence rule that governs when a pattern of conduct can be shown. Partial reconsideration of both was denied the following month.

Richard W. McGrath pleaded guilty on March 6, 2023, to one count of sexual assault in the third degree, contact with an unaware victim, a class C felony. The prosecution had initially involved 13 felony sexual-assault counts; the prosecutor dismissed the 11 remaining at sentencing on June 8, 2023. The Alaska Department of Law said in announcing the sentence that McGrath received 17 years with 15 suspended, two to serve, for assaults on three women in Sitka. A civil filing states the conduct behind the plea is the same conduct behind the civil complaint.

The City and Borough of Sitka opposed admitting the plea against the municipality, arguing that evidence admissible against McGrath personally was not automatically admissible against the city. The record contains no response from the plaintiff on that point beyond her motions.

Two questions drove the fight in the trial court. One was whether a municipal employer can be held liable for an employee's intentional acts because the job made them possible — the "aided in agency" doctrine — on which the court ordered supplementary briefing in November 2023. The other was money. The city moved in August 2023 for a ruling that punitive damages cannot be awarded against a government entity without express statutory authority. The plaintiff did not oppose, and the court granted it.

The court's judgment entry records the trial outcome in six words: "No Judgment was given at the Civil Jury Trial." On April 28, 2025, it entered two judgments against her: $58,750.68 to the city and $45,556.89 to McGrath.

Earlier in the litigation, while McGrath was under indictment, the court stayed all discovery requiring a response or disclosure from him until January 3, 2022.

The case is Breanna Wampler v. Richard W. McGrath, M.D., and City and Borough of Sitka, case number 1SI-20-00140CI; the appeal is S-19372. Argument is set for 2:30 pm Friday, Nov. 20, with 20 minutes to each side. Court-calendar records list the hearing at the Dimond Courthouse in Juneau, while the court's separately published argument calendar lists it at the Boney Courthouse in Anchorage; the records reviewed do not resolve which is correct. James W. McGowan of Sitka argues for the appellant. McGrath and the city, separately represented at trial by John P. Cashion and Howard A. Lazar, now share one lawyer, John J. Tiemessen.